Michael Gove: I absolutely commend the pupils’ initiative. The next generation often puts some of us to shame in its commitment to ensure that we have a more sustainable approach towards the environment. There is another youngster who has been leading the charge against plastic straws: the relatively newly installed editor of London’s Evening Standard, whose “The Last Straw” campaign has been instrumental in ensuring that commercial organisations ban plastic straws. As a relatively new entrant to my profession of journalism, I commend him on his promising start.

Michael Gove: My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Although we need to reduce demand for plastic and increase recycling, plastic does have a role to play in the preservation of fresh produce and in helping us to tackle us food waste, which is in itself an environmental and economic mistake.

Andrea Leadsom: The business for the week commencing 29 January 2018 will include:
Monday 29 January—Remaining stages of the Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [Lords], followed by remaining stages of the Automated and Electrical Vehicles Bill.
Tuesday 30 January—Second Reading of the High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill, followed by motions relating to the High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill.
Wednesday 31 January—Opposition day (un-allotted half day). Subject to be announced, followed by debate on motions relating to the restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster.
Thursday 1 February—Debate on a motion on baby leave for Members of Parliament, followed by debate on a motion on hospital car parking charges. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 2 February—Private Members’ Bills.
The provisional business for the week commencing 5 February will include:
Monday 29 January—Motions relating to the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2018 and the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2018, followed by remaining stages of the Smart Meters Bill.
We all remember those who suffered such terrible atrocities during the holocaust as we mark Holocaust Memorial Day this weekend, and I think we are all united in our desire to eradicate such evil acts from our world.
Next week, the House will have the opportunity to discuss the restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster. This must be a decision made by Parliament itself; it is not one for the Government. I urge all colleagues to take a basement tour, if they have not done so already, and to speak to the engineers ahead of the debate and see the challenges that lie ahead. Members may also wish to read the reports from the Joint Committee, the Public Accounts Committee and the Treasury Select Committee, and the financial memorandums to the motions, to acquaint themselves with the issues raised in them. They are all available online on the Parliament website, and of course my door is always open to any Member who wants to discuss this in advance of the debate.
Finally, I would like to wish everyone a very happy Burns night celebration tonight, particularly our Scottish colleagues on both sides of the House.

Valerie Vaz: I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the business. I also thank her for her letter about the new list of ministerial responsibilities, which states that this is scheduled for March and that the new list might be available soon. I do not know whether the Government are waiting for changes—perhaps the Foreign Secretary is now going to become the Health Secretary,   although he was reminded by the Chancellor that he is the Foreign Secretary. Ministers must know their responsibilities by now—otherwise, the Government would be in a shambles—so may we have the update sooner rather than later?
May we also have the date on which Parliament will rise in July? We only have the date when we return on 4 June, and I have been summoned for jury service and would like to know the date when I will be available.
I thank the Leader of the House for tabling the motions on restoration and renewal and for the debate on the subject. Having two motions will rather complicate the three-hour debate, however. At last week’s business questions, she said:
“Because of the seriousness of the decision before the House, the two motions will not be amendable; it will be a case of either the first motion or, if that falls, the second motion.”—[Official Report, 18 January 2018; Vol. 634, c. 1062.]
I hope that she is not trying to bind Parliament. I checked “Erskine May”, and it states that
“if the amended notice does not exceed the scope of the original notice and the Speaker decides that it is proper for the motion to be moved in the altered form”,
it can be tabled. I say hoorah for democracy and hoorah for you, Mr Speaker, because we know that an amendment has now been tabled. This is an important matter— I concur with the Leader of the House on this—and I have been down to the basement. It is important for Members to know that costs are being incurred every day that a decision is not being made.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) made a point of order yesterday on the Swansea bay tidal lagoon, a matter that I have raised many times in business questions. Will the Leader of the House ensure that the Prime Minister responds to the letter that the First Minister, Carwyn Jones, sent seven weeks ago offering financial help for the project? This Government should be working with the Welsh Government on a project that would be a world first. The First Minister is not Owain Glyndŵr; he is a very clever, democratically elected First Minister.
We know that the Government are committed to the environment, because they said so in their 151-page document “A Green Future”, but amazingly, that document made no mention of fracking. I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to a new study, “Sustainability of UK shale gas in comparison with other electricity options”, which examines the environmental, economic and social sustainability of fracking. May we have a statement on why exploratory drilling is going ahead in Lancashire when the study ranked shale gas seventh out of nine different energy sources?
May we have a statement on the UCAS data showing that the number of people applying to become teachers has fallen by a third in the past year, with 6,510 fewer applicants for teacher training in this academic year compared with 2015-16? Sadly, we need a statement from the Secretary of State for Education on why the number of teachers asking for financial support from the charity Education Support Partnership is up 40% on last year.
We want our teachers to teach our children personal, social and health and economic education. The Leader of the House will have heard about the events at the Presidents Club in yesterday’s urgent question from my  hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), in which the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) and my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) called for the expedition of PSHE. Will the Leader of the House please tell us when that will happen? We need that sooner, rather than later, in our schools. Will she also tell us whether the visit by a Minister to the Presidents Club was an official visit or a private one? Whether it is the Presidents Club or “All the President’s Men”, it is an abuse of power either way.
It is important to have Opposition days. In yesterday’s debate on Carillion, I and others asked a number of questions. The Minister—not the Secretary of State—came to the House to answer the questions, and he is following up on the taskforce that the TUC has asked for. The Opposition look forward to the delivery of the documents to the Public Accounts Committee. Will the Leader of the House say when they will be delivered?
Yesterday, we also had a debate on human rights, in this, the week of Holocaust Memorial Day, which is on Saturday. The Leader of the Opposition reminded us all to sign the book of commitment, which is still available to be signed between 2 pm and 4 pm outside the Members’ Cloakroom. That is a reminder that every one of the rights in the European convention on human rights, which was enacted in UK law under the Human Rights Act 1998, was systematically violated in the second world war. As the Opposition Day debate reminded us, human rights and dignity should be at the core of our society.

Andrew Slaughter: I am still waiting for an answer to my question on what caused the Grenfell Tower fire, which I was told was imminent last autumn. Not for the first time, the question has outlasted the Minister to whom it was asked. Can we hear from  Ministers in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy about fire safety, especially that of domestic appliances? Last Sunday they announced a new Office for Product Safety and Standards, which appears to be just a new name for business as usual.

Stephen Lloyd: As the roll-out of universal credit accelerates, Ministers will soon be confronted with the task of transitioning people on tax credits to universal credit. They must tell us soon how people will be informed of the changes and of when the draft statutory instruments will be laid. May we have a debate on how the Government will ensure that no one loses out as a result of the transition?

Diana R. Johnson: I am sure that the Leader of the House knows that this week the Institute for Public Policy Research North published a full analysis of transport investment in the next four years. It shows that London will receive five times per head more than what Yorkshire and Humber will receive. With Crossrail 2 already so far advanced, there is nothing that can be done by Transport for the North, in its advisory capacity, to change that underfunding over the next few years. May we have a statement from the Transport Secretary about exactly what he has got against the north? Rather than denying the underfunding, he should address it.

Justin Madders: Mostyn House in Parkgate is a fine example of how an old building has been brought back to life. Even though some of my constituents have been living there for more than four years now, planning permission has not been granted. Despite the best efforts of the local authorities, the builder, PJ Livesey, will not do the work that is required. May we please have a debate on what more can be done to bring irresponsible developers to task?

Nia Griffith: I am sure that I speak for Members across the House in paying tribute to the dedication of our armed forces.
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for advance sight of it. However, I respectfully say, Mr Speaker, that the way in which this statement has been arranged by the Government has been shambolic from start to finish, and utterly discourteous to right hon. and hon. Members, some of whom may be elsewhere today because of explicit and repeated assurances by the Government that the statement would come on Monday. I am sure you have noted, Mr Speaker, that Members first heard news of this announcement when it was briefed out to journalists on Tuesday afternoon, without so much as a written statement in this place. Then we had the complete farce of yesterday when the Government indicated that they would make a statement, then it was off, then it was on, and finally it was off again, with a full update promised on Monday. Clearly, the new facility to combat fake news is badly needed. [Hon. Members: “It was yesterday.”] I am talking about 7 o’clock yesterday. I does not fill me with much confidence about the conduct of this review that its origins have been so mired in chaos.
We do welcome the decision to separate out the modernising defence programme from the national security capability review, but the decision to hold a separate defence review must not simply be an excuse to kick the difficult decisions facing the defence budget into the long grass. This week we heard grave warnings from the Chief of the General Staff about the threats that this country faces. There has been growing concern that the Government’s savage cuts to our nation’s defences have left us ill equipped to respond to those threats.
The measure of this review will be in the detail. I hope that the Secretary of State will be able to give us some specific answers today. Turning to the most important question, will the review be fiscally neutral? We know that much of the concern about the NSCR was that it was being carried out within the same funding envelope as the spending review. But if this review identifies that additional spending is necessary for the security of our nation, will the Government step up to the plate? Surely the Secretary of State must agree that it would be pointless to have a review that finds we need additional equipment or increased personnel only for the Government to ignore that recommendation. We cannot do security on the cheap, and it is high time that the Government recognised that. Yet the statement makes reference to “further efficiencies” being carried out as part of this review, raising the spectre of yet further cuts.
Crucially, how does this review fit into the work being done by the National Security Adviser? Are any recommendations he may have made on defence as part of the NSCR to be carried over into this review, or is it a  case of starting from scratch? When it comes to threat assessments, will the modernising defence programme and the NSCR have a common view of the most significant threats?
Will the planned numbers or targets for our armed forces change, and if they do, will there be changes to planned structures and ongoing restructuring? Similarly, does the Defence Secretary foresee this review having an impact on the better defence estate strategy and future basing arrangements? Might it include the cancellation or downscaling of procurement plans, and if so, how will industry be involved in the process? Finally, what is the planned timetable for this review, and when will it be published? It is vital that our serving personnel are not kept in limbo about their future, but can be assured about when they will get answers.
This review represents an important opportunity for a step change in the Government’s approach to defence policy. We all hope that the Defence Secretary will use this chance to deliver real investment in our nation’s defences and the resources that our armed forces so badly need.

Stewart McDonald: I thank the Defence Secretary for advance sight of his statement, but the public must understand the farce that we went through yesterday to get to this point. This statement was on, it was off; it was maybe on, then it was definitely off. It was to happen next week, then we learnt that it was happening today—better late than never, I suppose. We must also stop reading about these reviews in The Times, and he must endeavour to come to the House more often, rather than allowing leaks to newspapers. [Interruption.] I realise he is here now, but hon. Members know exactly what I am referring to.
Let me ask a couple of questions about the statement. Will the right hon. Gentleman expand on this week’s announcement about the new disinformation unit—again, we had to read about that in the newspapers and he did not mention it today? If this review is not to be fiscally neutral, will he confirm that that is a departure from what Sir Mark Sedwill told the Defence Committee in a letter in which he said that it would be fiscally neutral? If it is not fiscally neutral, can members of the armed forces expect a pay rise when the review concludes? How will the review deal with Russian activity in and over the north Atlantic? Given what the right hon. Gentleman said about wishing to engage with Members, will he agree to meet me to discuss that issue? When he comes to report on this review in the summer, will he commit to handling it a lot better than he handled things yesterday?

Gavin Williamson: We have made a commitment in relation to the size of our armed forces. I think there is a strong argument that we need forces with not just the very best equipment, but mass, if we are to be able to deploy.

Bob Stewart: On Monday, General Sir Nick Carter, the Chief of the General Staff, stated that the Russians could go to war far more quickly that we had previously thought. Will my right hon. Friend allow consideration, and some support, to leaving, say, a brigade in Germany, so that we would be closer to where the battles may well be?

Gavin Williamson: One of the key elements of this programme is looking at how we can use defence to increase the prosperity of the nation. We talk about global Britain and about international diplomacy, and our armed forces are virtually always the best diplomats, because when others see British forces—whether the British Army, the Royal Air Force or the Royal Navy—they are perceived as a real symbol of Britain’s reach and what we can achieve in the world, and we will certainly be looking far beyond Suez.

Daniel Kawczynski: Given the nature of the increasing tensions with Russia, as my right hon. Friend has alluded to, will he give me an assurance that the size and frequency of British rotational deployments to Poland will increase under this review?

Gavin Williamson: My hon. Friend has done a lot of work on the fourth industrial revolution, and we must ask how we can harness those new technologies to give our military the constant advantage going forward. The battlefield is changing incredibly rapidly, and if we can work with SMEs, we need to do more of that because some of the greatest and most innovative ideas come from those businesses. I appreciated the time my hon. Friend took to speak with me about the some of the work being done in his constituency of Havant and look forward to working with him further to make some of those ideas a reality.

Gavin Williamson: I do not want to prejudge the programme just yet, but we need to give people the real confidence and belief that the armed forces are treasured and valued by everyone in this country. We need people to realise that if they join the Army, the Navy or the Air Force, they will have not just a great career, but the best possible career that anyone could ever have. I hope that the programme will give them the confidence that a career in our armed forces is the best career that they can pursue.

Julian Lewis: Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to come back again, but I happen to know that there was a strong wish on the part of the Secretary of State for Defence and his team to make the statement yesterday. The only reason it was not made was so as not to cut into Opposition-day time. I do think that should be borne in mind.

Lucy Powell: I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiments, and I will address some of that in my speech.
With hundreds of lifers in prison after being convicted under what the Supreme Court views as a wrong application of the law, this is potentially one of the biggest and most widespread miscarriages of justice ever to face our justice system. As such, I fear that the cosy club of the criminal justice establishment is closing in on itself to prevent this from ever being fully exposed.
What is joint enterprise? Joint enterprise has been applied in cases for more than 300 years, although it is a common law that has never been passed by Parliament. The doctrine allows for more than one person to be charged for the same offence, despite the fact that they may have played a different role, or no role, in the crime. Joint enterprise applies to all crimes, but in recent years it has been particularly used as a way to prosecute murder, especially, but not exclusively, in cases involving groups of young men.
This is obviously a very emotive issue, particularly for families of murder victims, and no one is suggesting that those who commit murder, or who knowingly and intentionally assist in committing murder, should not face the full force of the law. However, nor should the evidential bar for serious offences like murder be lower, by virtue of presence or association with the principal offender, as we have all too often seen.
Indeed, there are many cases, many of which I am sure will come to light today, in which people are serving life sentences when it is clear that they did not commit murder but were found guilty under the “old” or “wrong” law of parasitic assessorial liability. Furthermore, many others who were convicted as secondary parties are carrying the same sentences as the principal based on a prosecution narrative of gang and association, even though intent and foresight are unproven and the secondary party was not physically present or had withdrawn from the scene.
When one looks at the profile of those convicted of murder, there is a further flaw in how the doctrine is applied. The majority are of black and ethnic minority backgrounds, and the vast majority are young, with many teenagers serving life for a secondary or parasitic role. I will say more, as will others, but we have to ask questions about the disproportionate use of such doctrines in cases involving certain communities.
The political context is also relevant to this debate.

Andrew Mitchell: Mr Deputy Speaker, along with the whole House I welcome you back to the Chair. I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) on securing this debate and thank Mr Speaker and the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. I draw the attention of the House to my outside interests as set out in the register.
We are holding this debate today because we know that thousands of people have been prosecuted under joint enterprise over the last decade alone, and we have a profound fear that some of these convictions are unsound. I am deeply conscious that behind each of these crimes lies a victim, usually murdered, with grieving loved ones whose lives have been changed for ever and ruined. My heart goes out to all those and their families who have suffered in that way. But we also know that there is a wealth of evidence that suggests that joint enterprise has both convicted people in error and wholly disproportionately affected those who identify as black, Asian and minority ethnic.
Young people from ethnic communities have been, essentially, hoovered up for peripheral and in some cases even non-existent involvement in serious criminal acts. The Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Jogee has established that the previous interpretation of the law was wrong and confirmed the abolition of what I am advised lawyers call parasitic accessory liability, to which the hon. Lady referred. But to date only a very limited number of joint enterprise convictions have been quashed.
To find a defendant guilty of a criminal offence, a jury must be satisfied that a defendant both committed the crime and had the requisite state of mind to carry out the crime. Yet the law on joint enterprise, and secondary liability more generally, was developed by the courts to ensure that all participants in a criminal enterprise could be held accountable. Indeed, it has been a key tool when prosecuting suspected gang members. But there has been a failure by our criminal justice system to distinguish between gangs and groups. The House will understand that not all members of groups have a criminal purpose. Not all members of gangs or groups join in when there is an incident. Humans are by  nature social animals. People naturally hang around in groups or sports teams or protest marches. That does not mean, if an incident occurs, that everyone in the group intended whatever happened to happen.
We now have evidence of how discriminatory the law of joint enterprise has been, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on the work he did in revealing the unequal treatment of, and outcomes for, black, Asian and minority ethnic individuals in the criminal justice system. Over recent years, I have worked with Matilda MacAttram, of Black Mental Health, who has done so much good work exposing the inadequacies of the criminal justice and legal system in this respect. I also pay tribute to the Prime Minister who, as Home Secretary, ensured that the voice of Black Mental Health was heard in Government.
It is no accident that the bulk of the prison population convicted under a joint enterprise doctrine is young BAME men. It is an uneasy and difficult truth that an association might exist unconsciously or otherwise in the minds of the police, prosecutors and juries between being a young ethnic minority male and being in a gang, and therefore being involved in forms of urban violence. Such findings are echoed by studies of the ethnic profile of prisoners convicted on the basis of joint enterprise. One study by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies found that, for young people convicted under joint enterprise, nearly 60% were BAME.
There is now a real suspicion that justice has miscarried in many joint enterprise cases. Juries were not directed on the correct law, even in the most serious of cases. The high standards of legal accuracy we are entitled to expect of our justice system have simply not been met. In such cases, we rightly expect the appeal system to function and to function effectively.
Even as recently as 2017, prosecutors were still trying to find an easy way to convict, as was shown by the case of Lewis. Thankfully, the judge found there was no case to answer. The prosecution appealed that ruling and rightly lost. There is now a logjam in our criminal justice system, with the Court of Appeal appearing wrongly to block appeals by joint enterprise prisoners. The burden of the substantial injustice test, to which I have referred, has been passed on to the prisoner, which requires the person convicted to satisfy the Court of Appeal that
“he would not have been convicted had the jury been directed on the basis of the corrected law as set out in Jogee.”
Instead, the question should be, “Is there a realistic possibility that he would not have been convicted?”, which I understand has legal precedence and which was the test previously applied in the case of McInnes v. Her Majesty’s Advocate.
Along with the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), to whom I pay tribute, I visited Alex Henry in prison in Cambridgeshire. Shortly after his conviction for joint-enterprise murder, he was diagnosed with autism. I have taken a close interest in his case over the past two years and think it one of immense concern. As we have learned in recent weeks, the police and Crown Prosecution Service are often difficult to deal with in respect of disclosure. Parliament needs to reconsider the proper approach and the relevant sanctions. The evidence available to a prosecutor is now more comprehensive, with CCTV and phones, which in theory makes it easier to differentiate  between those who join in and those who do not. Recent cases of alleged sexual offending have demonstrated the consequences when disclosure is not properly dealt with.
The right to a fair trial is a basic human right. I worry that, in respect of these cases, our courts are too keen to block appeals by those who might have been convicted by error of the courts. Such behaviour serves only to undermine our faith in the justice system. There is a tendency in Britain to believe that we have the best criminal justice system in the world. I put it to the House that our attitude to the British crime and justice system is riddled with a complacency that is wholly unjustified. That view would be borne out by any fair-minded person who focused on joint enterprise.
The whole House should be grateful to the right hon. Member for Tottenham for his recent report, delivered at the Government’s request, on the legal system’s treatment of black, Asian and ethnic minorities in Britain. Quite apart from the right hon. Gentleman, there are many in the legal profession who argue that it is simply unacceptable that today, in 2018, virtually all senior members of the judiciary are white men from privileged backgrounds. That simply does not reflect the society that is Britain today and which the judiciary serve.
We should not forget that all too often in Britain, injustice is remedied not by the organs of the state but by the investigative prowess of a free media or, indeed, by Members of the House. Who can forget that the manifest injustice done to the Birmingham Six was remedied not by the police or the state, but by the indefatigable work of two Members of the House: Sir John Farr, the then Conservative Member for Harborough, and Chris Mullin, the then Labour Member for Sunderland South and subsequently a distinguished Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee and a development Minister? Today, the poor families of the victims of that outrage have still not achieved closure, as the ongoing coroner’s inquiry in Birmingham demonstrates.
I hope that, following this debate, the media will take a close interest in the cases in which joint enterprise might have led to innocent people being convicted. JENGbA, the organisation formed in 2010 to which the hon. Member for Manchester Central rightly referred, now supports more than 800 prisoners, many of whom are serving mandatory life sentences of 22 years, and the youngest of whom was just 12 when charged. I hope that the Justice Committee, with its considerable authority—its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), is in his place—will not allow these matters to rest until they have been fully examined by Parliament, so that we can be assured that justice has been delivered.

Bob Neill: There are a number of areas where changes are needed. I have great respect for the work of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, but I am conscious that it is under pressure both in terms of resource and of its terms of reference. It would not be unreasonable to look at that. Miscarriages of justice do occur. I know  that full well because I vividly remember prosecuting one once—not in a murder case, but in a rape case. At the time, the evidence and the legal test appeared compelling, but, thanks to the work of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, evidence came to light, and I had no hesitation in not seeking to resist the appeal when it came to the Court of Appeal a second time. Its work, therefore, is really important. It is also important that it has the means to carry out its vital job, as its role is a significant one. However, there are other gaps that we must look at as well.
Everybody accepts now that there was a serious departure from good reasoning in the case of Chan Wing-Siu in Privy Council back in 1985. When one reads the case, the odd thing is that the judgment, which was described as “taking a wrong turn” in the Supreme Court, was, actually, almost not based on the principal facts or arguments that had brought the appeal to start with. The noble Lord, the member of the Privy Council, giving the judgment in that case rather went off on a tangent and developed what was then regarded as the concept of secondary parasitic accessorial liability.
The matter could have been resolved perfectly well on the facts of its own case. It is set out very well in what is a very detailed judgment of a strongly constituted Supreme Court in the Jogee case. I certainly do not fault the judgment of the Supreme Court in Jogee at all. It is exceedingly well-reasoned, and it is significant that not only the then President of the Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger, but the current President, the then deputy president, Baroness Hale, were there. The then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, took the unusual step of sitting in the Supreme Court because of his experience in criminal justice matters. Intellectually, the Supreme Court in Jogee got the answer right and said that the approach, which had encompassed so many people into secondary liability in homicide offences, was wrong. However, some practical errors remain in its application.

Bob Neill: That brings me to my next point. There is a concern that, in practice, the filter effect that has been put to the bringing of appeals out of time and the way that it has been interpreted in cases such as Anwar and others has been particularly restrictive. That is the difficulty. It is very clear that the Court of Appeal in the Anwar case and subsequent cases has taken a very narrow interpretation of the substantial injustice point. That does not necessarily have to be the case on the basis of Jogee, but it was always made very clear in the Supreme Court’s judgment that one should not assume that the Jogee case would mean that every conviction for murder on the basis of joint enterprise should be overturned, or that in many cases, even where convictions for murder were overturned, there would not also be a conviction for manslaughter, where appropriate, but the level of foresight and involvement was less. That is the important point that we have to consider.
None the less, it is really important that we get to a situation in which people are convicted, certainly, of offences where they have done wrong, but they should be convicted of and sentenced for offences that properly reflect the level of culpability of their behaviour. When we do not get that right, confidence in the system is understandably undermined. That is my concern, which is shared by the Members who have already spoken, about the difficulty of bringing cases out of time to the Court of Appeal. Clearly, it is something that needs to be looked at. If the rule of precedent makes it difficult for a court to do that, perhaps Parliament and Government should indeed consider it.
I just observe in passing that there is, in any event, the proviso to the Criminal Appeal Act 1968, which would mean that if, once the case has been heard, no material injustice occurred, the conviction can be upheld. At the moment, we have a double test: a test to bring the appeal out of time; and then the proviso. The difference is that, in the test to bring the appeal out of time, the onus is on the appellant to meet that test, whereas, under the Criminal Appeal Act, the test in relation to the proviso puts the onus on the prosecution. That is something that needs to be considered.
When the Justice Committee looked at this matter with some care in evidence sessions in the last Parliament, the view was that it had to be seen in the context of a very unsatisfactory state of the whole law of homicide. The distinction between murder and manslaughter remains extremely unclear in this country. Unfortunately, the Government have not so far taken up the opportunity of examining that. The logical route would be to ask the Law Commission to carry out such an examination.
In evidence to the Justice Committee in the last Parliament, Professor David Ormerod, a former chair of the Law Commission, a senior commissioner for criminal law and a distinguished academic Queen’s Counsel in criminal law matters, identified exactly that point. He said that a review of the law of homicide still represents the
“best solution”
that
“could encompass the decision in Jogee.”
It would enable us, thereafter, to encompass the consequences that stemmed from it. Referring to the Supreme Court’s decision, he said that
“they are constrained, as ever in the common law, by the facts of the case and the nature of the argument.”
That is our common law system. He went on:
“It was not possible for them to offer a comprehensive review of the whole of the law relating to secondary liability, which the Law Commission could do”.
One of my asks of the Government, as well as revisiting the test for bringing the appeals out of time, is to take up the Law Commission’s willingness to examine that area. There is vast expertise in the Law Commission, which is sometimes under-used. It can look at the matter dispassionately and set the difficulty that we have with secondary liability in these cases into the broader difficulties that we have with the law of manslaughter. We heard compelling evidence from criminal practitioners, representatives of the Criminal Bar Association, about the real difficulty and complexity of giving direction to juries in manslaughter cases.
Judges have given most careful directions, after discussions with counsel on both sides, but none the less they frequently find juries returning and sending a note seeking further clarification. The greater the lack of clarity, the greater the risk of injustice. I hope that issue can be resolved. I suggest to my hon. and learned Friend the Minister, whom I welcome to her post, that that would be a sensible and measured approach to find an intellectually sound way forward on this intractable issue.
The other matter that I would like the Minister to consider is the review of the Crown Prosecution Service guidelines, which the Justice Committee has taken evidence on. The fact that the review is taking place is welcome. The hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) referred to the disproportionate impact that the use of prosecutions using joint enterprise has on certain communities.
The fact is that a doctrine developed some 300 years ago still has effects on the social life of 21st century Britain, and those effects are very different from what Lord Hale described in his “History of the Pleas of the Crown” in about 1670. We need to have a means of applying that prosecutorial tool in a way that reflects modern society.
I hope that the public interest element of the Attorney General’s guidelines can be strengthened to consider the appropriateness of using this tool in the way we have discussed, given the impact on certain communities within the United Kingdom. I hope that those are constructive suggestions that we can take forward from this debate.

Chris Green: It is a pleasure to see you back in your place, Mr Deputy Speaker.
It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), especially given the points that he raised about the local context—the 40 seconds leading to 12 years—the historical context and this ancient practice deriving from duelling. I appreciate the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) bringing this important debate to the House.
Our justice system needs to recognise the context in which much crime happens. There is a social context. It is more than just an individual engaging with and committing crime. Friends and family have a huge influence on people’s lives, on what they do and on the moral framework in which they act. If an individual gets in with the wrong crowd, perhaps a gang or a mob, and those people encourage, force, direct or egg on people to commit crimes, the justice system has to take account of their actions. There has to be that justice. That is what friends and families of the victims, so often murdered, would want and expect.
Therefore, I would like to support the hon. Lady’s comments about improving the sense of proportionality and about the gathering and presentation of accurate data. It is do important that we have good data to base these decisions on in future. I also agree with her on bringing forward the CPS review.
I am not a lawyer, so I do not want to detain the House for too long. I recognise that following the Supreme Court ruling of February 2016 the CPS has  consulted widely on new legal guidance for prosecutors in cases of secondary liability. I hope that the Minister agrees that hon. Members and their constituents would be best served by waiting for that guidance to be issued.

David Lammy: The hon. Gentleman is right. He makes the case that it is now for the House really to get thinking about these matters.
As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, an accessory party can be liable under joint enterprise, even if they withdraw from a group before any crime is committed. Many hon. Members will think of the example of a group of students in a playground or a park, where someone talks about teaching someone a lesson—in fact, we might recall such an occasion from our own lives when we were younger—and one of those individuals thinks that teaching a lesson involves significant violence, assault or even something ending in murder, and just because the group had discussed teaching someone a lesson, someone else may end up in prison for murder.
We have been in the House when or know of times when Members have picked up the Mace—I am thinking of the former leader of the SNP and Lord Heseltine. If you picked up the Mace and an older Member thought it was coming towards them and died from a heart attack, you would be in serious trouble. However, if you had discussed it with your colleagues beforehand, they too would be in serious trouble. A whole political party—on that occasion, the SNP—might have been heading towards that. That shows how ridiculous this situation has become, and it is why we need an urgent review.
We are having this debate after politicians have said, “We have to crack down on gangs and that is why we are doing this.” But has it worked? Knife crime is rising: in England and Wales, there were 36,998 knife crime offences in the 12 months to the end of June. Hospital admissions as a result of knife crime and the use of sharp objects are rising. We have a real problem in London, which the Mayor of London is trying to deal with. Has this therefore had the effect that people suggested it would? It has not. It has not had that effect because it is not minors driving knife crime—it is serious organised criminals: gangsters and kingpins. They are driving the trafficking of cocaine and drugs, which is leading to the turf wars that are making some of the communities we represent more violent. The 14, 15 and 16-year-olds or those in their early-20s locked up for the offence of joint enterprise do not know anything about getting a tonne of cocaine from Bolivia or Colombia. We must go after the gangsters, but we are hearing very little about that.
The Ministry of Justice’s own research on joint enterprise convictions understands the psychology of young people. It understands the need of teenagers and juveniles to belong to a group. It understands that they have a predisposition towards risk, seeking excitement and reckless behaviour. It understands their inability to disinhibit their impulses and the fact that they have less self-control. All of us in the House who are raising or have raised teenagers will recognise all those characteristics. Are we really going to throw young men—black and white—into prison because they are young?
I have two boys at home. They navigate the streets of north London on their way to school and one in particular goes through some high knife-crime areas. I am raising  boys who would never ever take a knife out of the house and use it on anybody else—I am absolutely sure about that—but can I say, if something is going on in a park, that one of them might not drift towards the action? Hand on heart, as a father, I cannot say that. I do not ever want to have to visit one of my own children in prison. None of us should want ever to have to visit young people in prison. None of us should want that waste. None of us should want those criminal records. It is time that this House acted.

Jim Fitzpatrick: I am grateful to speak in this important debate, and it is always a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). I congratulate those who secured this debate, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating it some time.
When my constituent, Ms Gillian Hyatt, first came to see me in 2012 about her sons in prison, I thought it a straightforward case of a mum doing her best for her children despite the fact that they had offended. I commend her for pressing me to look beyond a concerned mother and to examine the JENGbA campaign. I attended JENGbA’s briefing in Parliament only a few months ago, as did most of my colleagues here today. I was shocked by consistent reports of case after case of mostly young men—including, as we have heard, a disproportionate number from the black, Asian and minority ethnic communities—who had been not only convicted, but handed the severest of sentences. I commend JENGbA for its campaign, and for its briefing for today’s debate.
Like other Members, I have not heard anyone say that all those locked up are innocent. Called “inside campaigners”, some may well be, but the message I hear most strongly is that although some may be innocent, many are guilty of lesser offences. Some of those offences are much less serious, and therefore the tariffs handed down by the judges seem questionable at least. The numbers are huge, but efforts to assess how many people are involved have proved difficult. The Ministry of Justice has not produced statistics for those found guilty through joint enterprise, and one has to ask why.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that between 2005 and 2013, between 1,800 and 4,500 people were prosecuted for murder with joint enterprise used as part of the charge. However, I am getting ahead of myself, because the fundamental flaw in using joint enterprise to prosecute for murder was exposed, as we have heard in speech after speech, by the Supreme Court in 2016. The Court held that in 1984 the law had taken “a wrong turn”—I think every speaker has mentioned that, and it must be one of the weakest euphemisms ever heard—in the case of Regina v. Chan Wing-Siu, and it overturned the verdict of Regina v. Jogee.
Jogee was retried and found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter, and his mandatory life sentence was replaced by an appropriate sentence for manslaughter. The Supreme Court also ruled that cases prior to Jogee could only go back to the Court of Appeal if people  could prove that their conviction was a “substantial injustice.” Despite the hundreds of cases at least—I repeat that the Ministry of Justice cannot, or will not, say exactly how many there are—the Court of Appeal has denied every joint enterprise appeal. Incidentally, the youngest person to receive a life sentence was just 12 years old when charged.
The common-law doctrine of joint enterprise covers two types of offence. The first is “assisting and encouraging”, also known as “aiding and abetting”, and I have nothing to say about that. The other is “parasitic accessory liability”, which I find quite troubling. Even the title sounds as if the accused must be guilty of something, or has some form of vicious disease. PAL is controversial, as the secondary offender would not need to intend the crime, but merely have been able to foresee it.
Traditionally, for someone to be convicted of murder, it had to be proved that the killer intended to kill, or at least to seriously injure someone. PAL was therefore quite a shift, and led to hundreds, if not thousands, of convictions over 30 years since 1985. The Supreme Court decision in 2016 on Regina v. Jogee must, at least statistically, call some of those convictions into question. That decision, however, applies to out-of-time appeals only if it can be proved that a “substantial injustice” has occurred—that was tested in Regina v. Johnson in 2016—and proved categorically that a change in the law “would” have made a difference. The Criminal Appeal Act 1968 allows the court to quash a conviction where the misapplication of law “might”, rather than “would”, have made a difference. Since the Jogee decision, none of the 800 men, women and children currently supported by JENGbA have successfully appealed against their conviction—not one.
My constituents Asher and Lewis Johnson were both sentenced to 16 and a half years for a murder committed by another man. I will not go into great detail, but suffice it to say that they maintain they had no knowledge of the guilty party’s intention. Asher was a youth worker who had never been in trouble before. It might be that there is more to the case, but for them to be found guilty by association seems worthy of fresh examination, especially given the Supreme Court ruling that the law had taken a “wrong turn.” It certainly had for the Johnson brothers. They want a fresh hearing with the evidence presented in light of the Jogee ruling, but that has been denied. I cannot know all the facts, and like all colleagues here I do all I can to support the police in their difficult job, but something here just does not feel right.
In conclusion, JENGbA is calling for the abolition of parasitic accessory liability charging—as my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central explained in her excellent speech, CPS guidance on that is still very confusing. It also calls for the abolition of child life sentences, and for the Ministry of Justice to collect data on all joint enterprise secondary party convictions. It argues that this is a
“common law, used against common people, that makes no common sense.”
I believe it has a very strong case.

Ruth Cadbury: I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), my hon. Friend the Member   for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) on securing this debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating it time today.
I represent some of the family of Alex Henry, whose case was explained in some detail by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound). Alex Henry was involved in a fatal street fight in Ealing in 2013, and has spent four years in prison, serving 19 years under joint enterprise. His mother, Sally Halsall, is my constituent, and last October I met her and Alex’s sister, Charlotte, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North and the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield. I really came to understand the importance and significance of joint enterprise, and the need to review the law.
In August 2013 Alex Henry went shopping with three friends. A confrontation took place that lasted just over 40 seconds. It is not clear why the confrontation took place, but it may have been triggered by a stare. One young man used a knife from within a bag, and he stabbed two brothers, one of whom tragically lost his life. On the sixth day of the trial, the man with the knife pleaded guilty to murder and grievous bodily harm with intent, and was sentenced to 22 years. Alex Henry received a sentence of 19 years—only four years less—despite never touching the knife or even being aware of its existence.
Since Alex’s conviction in March 2014, his family have campaigned tirelessly with JENGbA to reform the law of joint enterprise. The injustice, as the family saw it, was that traditionally, for someone to be found guilty of murder the Crown needed to prove that the defendant inflicted fatal harm while intending to kill, or at least to commit very serious harm. Conversely, under joint enterprise the Crown needs only to prove that the defendant foresaw the possibility that the crime “might” happen, rather than that they intended it and knew that it “would” happen. This means that it is easier to prove the guilt of the accessory than with the principal offender. Therefore, in Alex’s case the Crown needed to prove that Alex foresaw the possibility that the stabbing “might” happen, rather than that he intended and knew that it “would” happen.
There was no evidence that Alex knew about the possession of the knife and therefore that someone might be stabbed. However, the Crown persuaded the jury by arguing that “friends tell each other everything”, and therefore that Alex must have known the other man was in possession of a knife that day, and foreseen the possibility of its use if any altercations were to arise during the shopping trip. “Friends tell each other everything and therefore the crime could have been foreseen”—what a shocking indictment of the way the law works if that can lock up a young man for so long.
As we have heard, in February 2016 the joint enterprise law was successfully reformed. Now, rather than foresight, the Crown needs only to prove that the defendant intentionally encouraged or assisted the principal offender while knowing that the crime “would” take place. The law of joint enterprise has convicted thousands of men, women and children, 800 of whom are supported by JENGbA. However, the courts have ruled that the change in the law will have no automatic retrospective effect for out-of-time appeals, which include every case resulting in conviction 28 days or more before the  change in the law. Instead, those out-of-time appeals will be allowed only if a defendant can prove a substantial injustice, which means proving that the change in law would, without doubt, have made a difference.
However, that is an impossible test, as was found in the case of Regina v. Anwar in 2016. The evidential bar has not been raised by Jogee; in particular, presence at the scene of the offence can amount to encouragement of the crime. Moreover, proof of the defendant’s intent to encourage, coupled with his knowledge that the crime would happen, can be inferred from the friendship of the co-defendants, just as foresight was inferred before Jogee.
If nothing more need be shown evidentially since the change in the law, how can a defendant prove that the change in the law would have made a difference? In comparison, those who have suffered a misapplication of the law changed in Jogee need to show only within 28 days of conviction that the conviction is unsafe, in that the misdirection might have made a difference. So far, no out-of-time case has succeeded on appeal—including Alex’s appeal, which was rejected.
In his excellent report on black and minority ethnic people in the justice system, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham, who is no longer in his place, rightly shone a light on unacceptable inequality, particularly for young people from those communities. But two other factors are particularly relevant to joint enterprise. First, there is maturity. Many convicted under joint enterprise are not in full maturity; the justice system is beginning, slowly, to understand that young men under 25 are not mature and need to be considered slightly differently—their maturity must be a factor in their cases.
The other factor is the autism spectrum. Alex Henry’s diagnosis of autism was important in his case. Despite Alex’s having had many problems from an early age, no one had suggested to him or his family that he might be on the autistic spectrum until a viewer of the documentary made about the case wrote to the family. Alex’s family then arranged for Alex to be assessed by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, the leading academic on autism and Asperger’s syndrome in this country.
The professor’s report states that it is incredibly unlikely that Alex could have foreseen what would or might happen in those 40 seconds since, due to his autism, he cannot predict the actions, behaviours or intentions of others. The Court of Appeal rejected that ground because Alex’s mother has a PhD in psychology and so she could have coached Alex in “how to act autistic”. That is shocking. The court also said that it could not understand why Alex was diagnosed so late in life, aged 23, despite seven previous mental health assessments, which did not result in a diagnosis.

Andrew Slaughter: I have had the privilege of working with JENGbA, and particularly with Gloria Morrison, for seven or eight years, and I am pleased that the organisation is now located in my  constituency. However, I am sorry that we have not made more progress—by “we”, I mean the House and the Government. As we have heard, JENGbA has a phenomenal record of representing 800 families in these difficult cases. I have a number of constituents serving long sentences who were convicted before the Jogee judgment and are therefore potentially subject to review; I am sure many other Members do too, given the numbers.
Before coming to those points, let me say that these matters are not easy. I am sure that we all also have constituents who have been the victims of violent crime. As my hon. Friends the Members for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) and for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) said, we are concerned that people should be punished suitably for crimes that they have committed. There are famous cases, including those of Garry Newlove and Stephen Lawrence, in which joint enterprise played a part in the convictions. When very serious offences are committed, particularly murder, and there are victims and grieving families, it is perhaps only human nature to want to bring people to justice. The difficulty has arisen because, particularly where there are large gangs or groups, it is more difficult to identify who the actual perpetrators are. The danger of a miscarriage of justice is therefore all the greater.
Several Members have referred to the history of what has variously been called common purpose, secondary liability or joint enterprise. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) said that the offence was originally developed by the common law to deal with the social evil of duelling, almost as a matter of public policy rather than law. The leading case of Swindall and Osborne in 1846 was about two cart drivers encouraging each other in a race, one of whom killed a pedestrian. It is easy to see in such cases how one can attach guilt to the person who is not the primary perpetrator. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) mentioned the celebrated Craig and Bentley case, in which many factors were involved. On Sunday, it will be 65 years since the execution of Derek Bentley. It is 25 years since he was pardoned, and 20 years since his sentence was quashed. Bentley, who was 19, was hanged, but the actual perpetrator, Chris Craig, was not, because he was under 18.
However such cases were resolved, it is fairly easy to see the principle of joint enterprise at work, but, as has been pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) and others, we are now dealing with a number of new factors. There is the huge preponderance of people from black and minority ethnic communities who are convicted, there is the number of young people convicted, and there is, simply, the number of people who are engaged. It is, I think, wrong to say that not much attention has been paid to the issue; it is a question of what the outcomes have been. The Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), and his predecessors have produced a number of telling reports.
The Crown Prosecution Service guidelines have been reviewed, although they may still be imperfect, and, of course, there has been the Jogee judgment. That judgment is perhaps unsurprising. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), before Jogee the level of the mental test for secondary participants was lower than the one applying  to primary offenders. That had to change, and it has changed. There is, therefore, a possibility of review, but—I think the courts are cognisant of this—there is also the issue of floodgates. Will there suddenly be a huge number of cases to review because of a correction of the law—not a change in the law, but a declaration of what the law should have been all along? Many Members have said, “So be it”, but it is up to the Government to decide how the position is to be dealt with, and I am afraid that the Government have been wanting in that regard.
After Jogee, in November 2016, the then Secretary of State wrote to the Justice Committee:
“We have concluded that no further review of the law is necessary at this time.”
As far as I know, that is still the Government’s position, although we may hear otherwise from the Minister today. Let me say to the Minister that that is wrong. We need such a review. That will not be easy, because this is a complex and difficult offence and because there are arguments on both sides, but the law gets itself into a mess in exactly these areas. When I was a shadow justice Minister between 2010 and 2015, I urged my party, if it were subsequently to come to power, to look at some of these difficult issues. I am thinking of not just joint enterprise, but inchoate offences and, indeed, homicide. A number of common-law offences that have developed over a period may not be fit for purpose in the modern world. I hope that we shall hear some positive answers from the Minister today. Reviewing the law in this respect cannot be left to the courts or the prosecuting authorities. Sooner or later, either this or a future Government will have to do it.
My final point—another JENGbA point—concerns evidence and statistics. I cannot believe that we are not collecting proper statistics. It is clear from the statistics that are available that a high proportion of people are convicted of homicide on the basis of joint enterprise. According to some estimates, the proportion who are sentenced is approaching 50%. Two years ago, I asked a parliamentary question on the subject. My question was:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people have been convicted under joint enterprise in each year since 2010.”
The answer was as follows:
“Such information is not held centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.”
That, too, is quite wrong. If we are to deal sensibly with this difficult and sensitive matter, we must have the facts.
It would be wonderful to hear from the Minister today that there will be a review, and that the Government will refer the matter to the Law Commission, as was indicated by the Chair of the Justice Committee. It would certainly be welcome to hear that there will be a proper collection of statistics, so that we have a sound basis on which to introduce reform.

Lucy Frazer: I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for his comments. I would like to start the debate by commending the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) for securing this debate on an issue that is close to her constituency and to her heart. I also want to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) and the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) for supporting the motion today.
I fully recognise the importance of the law in this area. When anyone is charged and convicted of a crime, it will have serious consequences for them, their families and their victims. This is especially the case when the charge may be for such a serious crime as murder. I also recognise the sensitivity of this issue, given that the youngest of those that JENGbA supports was 12 when he was charged with the offence, as many Members have mentioned. That will obviously have a significant impact on his life.
Many Members have identified what the Supreme Court decided, but it is important to set out the principles involved because some Members put forward hypothetical circumstances that could result in a conviction for accessory liability, and I am not sure that all those circumstances were right. It is important to be clear what we are talking about from the outset.
First, I will summarise a few of the points in the Supreme Court judgment in the case of Jogee, which was handed down in February 2016. It concerned a very specific area of the law on joint enterprise called parasitic accessory liability, rather than the whole law of joint enterprise. Such liability arises when two people, person 1 and person 2, participate together in one offence, such as a burglary, and during those events, person 1 commits a second offence—for example, he or she murders a security guard. Under the law as it stood before Jogee, if the second person foresaw that the first person might act with the intention to kill or cause really serious harm and participated in the burglary none the less, that second person would be guilty of murder alongside the first.
In the Jogee judgment, the Supreme Court said that that was wrong, as the motion recognises. A person cannot be guilty merely for foreseeing that an accomplice might commit a second offence during the course of the original plan. Rather, the Supreme Court held that such a person can be guilty only if he or she intentionally encourages or assists a person to commit such an offence and intends them to have the mens rea required for that offence. The effect of Jogee is that members of a gang who are not the principal perpetrators of the crime will not necessarily be guilty of the crime in question unless it can be shown that they have intentionally encouraged or helped the principal perpetrators to commit that crime. As many Members have said, the Supreme Court also held that offenders convicted under the old test would be granted permission to appeal only if they had suffered “substantial injustice”. That is the position as it stands, as a matter of law.
I should like to respond to some of the points that have been made today. In the short time allotted, I am afraid that I will not be able to respond to them all. I shall concentrate on those that are identified in the motion. There has been a suggestion that the number of cases brought under joint enterprise has been unchanged since the Supreme Court judgment. As the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and others have pointed out, however, the difficulty with that argument is that there are no official statistics to enable us to confirm or deny that. A number of Members have criticised the Ministry of Justice for not collecting that data, and we are looking into that. It might be possible to address that under our reforms relating to the common platform. I can confirm that the Ministry of Justice is looking into the matter.
The point was also made that there has not yet been a successful appeal. I understand that that could be extremely frustrating for the parties concerned, but it does not mean that there is no route to an appeal. There is a system to challenge any previous decisions. It is possible for an appeal to be made by an individual, who could also apply to the Criminal Cases Review Commission to have their case reviewed by the Court of Appeal. Indeed, a number of cases have been brought. [Interruption.] They have been brought, but they have been unsuccessful. There has also been criticism of the threshold that the Court of Appeal applies in relation to substantial injustice, but this is not a new test brought in by the Supreme Court in relation to Jogee. It is a long-applied test that the Court Appeal uses in relation to out-of-time appeals.
The key point that has been advanced in relation to the motion today is that there is a need for legislation. I should like to identify few reasons why it might not be appropriate to bring forward legislation at this stage. First, the law on joint enterprise is not set out in statute; it has evolved through case law. Some criticism was made of that by the right hon. Member for Tottenham, but the evolution of law through the courts has always been an important part of our common law justice system. In our law, the common law has equal weight with law made by statute. No judge in the Jogee case identified a need for Parliament to change the law. Indeed, the hon. Member for Manchester Central has accepted, today and previously, that the Supreme Court ruling said that it was the responsibility of the courts to put the law right. Many Members have accepted that the law as set down by the Supreme Court is right, but some have identified that the implementation of that decision is flawed. I would like to make a few points in relation to that.
The Crown Prosecution Service has already amended its guidance and it is currently operating on guidance in line with the Supreme Court decision. More importantly, it has consulted on revised guidance for use by prosecutors. The hon. Lady has contributed to that, which is to be commended. I am told that the CPS aims to publish a summary of its response to the consultation and the final version of its guidance in the early part of this year.
Many Members have rightly identified the disproportionate number of black and minority ethnic defendants in these cases, and I am pleased that the CPS has confirmed that the revised guidance will take account of the Lammy recommendations, which task  the CPS with taking the opportunity of reworking its guidance on joint enterprise to consider its approach to gang prosecutions in general. The CPS has also revised its internal resources on gangs in the light of the recommendations resulting from the Lammy review.
The motion calls for clarity in the law, but it does not identify what the lack of clarity is or how the law could be improved. Indeed, as the hon. Lady has said, what is needed is for the Supreme Court judgment to be followed. There is no suggestion that the law itself needs to be changed; it just needs to be enforced.

Joan Ryan: I have no difficulty agreeing with my hon. Friend on that point. Hezbollah has killed probably more Muslims than anybody else, as well as Christians, Jews and others.
Hezbollah’s leaders and its media peddle classic anti-Semitic tropes and lies. They refer to Jews in the basest of terms, labelling them “apes and pigs”, and suggesting that
“you will find no one more miserly or greedy than they are”.
Hezbollah’s leaders and media make spurious claims about Jewish conspiracies and world domination, and they deny the Holocaust, suggesting that
“the Jews invented the legend of the Nazi atrocities”.
Hezbollah’s hatred of Jews is a noxious mix, which, in the words of one writer, fuses
Arab nationalist-based anti-Zionism, anti-Jewish rhetoric from the Koran, and, most disturbingly, the antique anti-Semitic beliefs and conspiracy theories of European fascism”.

Nicholas Boles: It is so great to see you back in your seat, Mr Deputy Speaker. I hot-tailed it from my office in Norman Shaw South when I saw the right hon. Lady on the television screen and was absolutely inspired by the passion with which she is speaking. She is a friend of Israel, and I am a friend of Israel, but does she agree that you do not have to be a friend of Israel to believe that Hezbollah, in its entirety, is a terrorist organisation? You can be a friend of Syria, a friend of Lebanon or a friend of the entire middle east, but you should want Hezbollah, in its entirety, to be banned.

Joan Ryan: Well said—I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation and it should be banned in its entirety—whoever you are a friend of—if you are not a friend of the terrorists. I would add one other thing: it is not just for Jews to fight anti-Semitism, and this is an anti-Semitic organisation; it is for all of us to stand up on that issue.
The distinction is not one that Hezbollah has ever recognised; in fact, it has consistently and explicitly refuted it. In 1985, its founding document stated clearly:
“As to our military power, nobody can imagine its dimensions because we do not have a military agency separate from the other parts of our body. Each of us is a combat soldier when the call of jihad demands its.”
It could not be clearer.
In 2009, Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy general secretary, made it clear that
“the same leadership that directs the parliamentary and government work also leads jihad actions in the struggle against Israel”.
It could not be clearer. He repeated this message three years later, declaring:
“We don't have a military wing and a political one; we don’t have Hezbollah on one hand and the resistance party on the other…Every element of Hezbollah, from commanders to members as well as our various capabilities, are in the service of the resistance, and we have nothing but the resistance as a priority.”
Those are Hezbollah’s own words.
Also in 2013, Nasrallah himself ruled out any notion that the military and political wings were somehow different:
“However, jokingly I will say—though I disagree on such separation or division—that I suggest that our ministers in the upcoming Lebanese government be from the military wing of Hezbollah.”
He also mocked our Government’s division between the two, saying
“the story of military wing and political wing is the work of the British”.
That is what he said. It is a distinction that, with good reason, many other countries throughout the world do not recognise. Those that do not include the Netherlands, Canada, the US, the Arab League and the Gulf Co-operation Council.

Joan Ryan: Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman is right. Those Governments that do proscribe Hezbollah in its entirety do talk to the Lebanese Government. If Hezbollah wishes to change its views on Israel—to not obliterate it—and to signal that it will give up its arms, I am sure that, whether it is proscribed or not, that would be the right road to take if it wished to take part in any peace negotiations, which it clearly does not.
Many Members of this House do not recognise the false distinction between the military and the political wing, as is evident today. Last summer, marchers at the al-Quds day parade in London displayed Hezbollah flags, causing great offence to so many, especially in the Jewish community. Once again, they were exploiting the utterly bogus separation that the Government choose to make.
I pay tribute to Jewish communal organisations, such as the Community Security Trust, the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council, which have tirelessly campaigned on the issue of Hezbollah proscription. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), as well as the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) and the Mayor of London, for their efforts to persuade the Government to proscribe Hezbollah in its entirety.
I note not only the Government’s unwillingness to do so but their inability to explain or justify why they will not act. I understand that, in conflict situations, it is sometimes necessary to keep open channels of communication to facilitate dialogue and to encourage those who are engaged in violence to abandon the bomb and the bullet for the ballot box. However, there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that this is Hezbollah’s intention. In both its rhetoric and its actions, this leopard shows no sign of changing its spots.
Nor do I accept the notion, which Ministers have previously advanced, that banning Hezbollah’s political wing might somehow—the Chair of the Select Committee touched on this—impede our ties with Lebanon, where Hezbollah exercises not just military but political power. Proscribing Hezbollah in its entirety does not appear to have hampered relations between Lebanon and any of the countries we have already referred to. I am deeply  concerned that this Government are simply not taking the threat posed by Hezbollah seriously. Only last week, I was informed by the Home Office that it does not collect data on the numbers of Hezbollah members or supporters in the UK, a practice that is followed by other European countries, such as Germany.
The Terrorism Act 2000 allows the Home Secretary to proscribe an organisation which
“(a) commits or participates in acts of terrorism,
(b) prepares for terrorism,
(c) promotes or encourages terrorism,”
including the unlawful glorification of terrorism, or
“(d) is otherwise concerned in terrorism.”
As I have demonstrated, Hezbollah, the leaders of which assert that it is unified and indivisible, more than fulfils those criteria. Even if a distinction between the political and military wings could be drawn, the words of the former in promoting, encouraging and glorifying terrorism surely meet the Government’s criteria for proscription.
After last June’s terrorist attack at London Bridge, the Prime Minister said
“there is, to be frank, far too much tolerance of extremism in our country.”
I agree. Hezbollah is an organisation that is driven by a hatred of Jews, that promotes and encourages terrorism and that calls for the destruction of the middle east’s only democracy—a key British ally in the region. However, as long as the Government do not proscribe Hezbollah’s so-called political wing, the tolerance will continue.

Ian Austin: That is correct, and the point was made eloquently by the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee earlier. The hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) goes to the middle east a lot; he knows a lot of people there. He is an expert on the region and what he says is worth listening to. I hope that Ministers will be listening to the advice that they have just been given.
Analysts warn that the next conflict between Israel and Hezbollah
“will likely be the most destructive Arab-Israel war yet.”
Israel’s military believes that, in a future conflict, Hezbollah will be able to launch 1,500 rockets and missiles a day. Israel has increased its defensive capabilities, but Hezbollah is likely to target military facilities, important infrastructure and civilian population centres.
In the past, Nasrallah has threatened that Hezbollah will attack an ammonia storage facility in Haifa and a nuclear reactor at Dimona. The week before last, I was in Haifa, which is just over 20 miles from the border with Lebanon and is the site of Israel’s oil refinery, making it one of Hezbollah’s main targets. Imagine the carnage, devastation and civilians deaths that could result in a future conflict when Hezbollah start to rain down missiles on Haifa from just a few miles away, as it has done in the past.
Sadly, Israel’s experience in southern Lebanon was repeated in Gaza. Israel signed an agreement with the Palestinian Authority on movement and access to Gaza, which gave the Palestinians control over their borders for the first time in history, allowed imports and exports, and approved the construction of a seaport and discussions on an airport. Israel pulled out of Gaza but, just as in Lebanon, an Islamist movement, a terrorist organisation, a powerful armed militia—this time Hamas, also equipped by Iran and just as committed to Israel’s destruction as Hezbollah—launched a coup, banned elections, drove out Fatah, threw fellow Palestinians from the rooftops, summarily executed people outside mosques after Frida prayers and declared themselves the new rulers of Gaza, saying that they would use the strip as a base to destroy Israel. The unilateral withdrawal of 8,500 Israelis from Gaza was met not by peace but, after Hamas’s brutal takeover, by rockets and attack tunnels. When we look at the experience in Lebanon and in Gaza, we can understand why, whether or not people in this Chamber like it, the Israelis are very reticent about pulling out of the west bank.
As we have just heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), the Iranian proxy Hezbollah poses a significant threat to security and stability in the middle east—explicitly the whole middle east, not just Israel. My second point is that Hezbollah has played a particularly pernicious and powerful role in the internal affairs of Lebanon. Its armed forces have been described as more effective than Lebanon’s army and its military power is occasionally used to pressurise the Lebanese Government, allowing Iran to exercise influence in the country. Once seen as a state within a state, Hezbollah’s growing influence in Lebanon threatens to draw Israel’s northern neighbour, and its army, into any future conflict.
My third point is that, as we have heard, Hezbollah’s so-called resistance against Israel is influenced by its deeply anti-Semitic ideology. The group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah has said that if Jews
“all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”
He has also suggested:
“God imprinted blasphemy on the Jews’ hearts.”
Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Naim Qassem, has said that
“the history of Jews has proven that, regardless of the Zionist proposal, they are a people who are evil in their ideas.”
The late Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, one of Hezbollah’s most influential figures, peddled anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Jews. He declared:
“The Jews want to be a world superpower…the Jews will work on the basis that Jewish interests are above all world interests.”
I have criticised the Government for not proscribing Hezbollah, but I also wish to address some remarks to my party. In 2009, at a meeting of the so-called Stop the War Coalition, which must be the worst or most inappropriately named organisation in British politics, the leader of the Labour party said that he had invited “friends” from Hamas and Hezbollah to an event in Parliament. Later, when asked why he had called them friends, he said:
“I use it in a collective way, saying our friends are prepared to talk.”
He also said:
“There is not going to be a peace process unless there is talks involving Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas”.
First, who would describe a racist, fascistic and terrorist organisation like Hezbollah as friends? Social democrats—indeed, all democrats—should always be crystal clear about how they describe totalitarian movements and Governments, whether that is Hezbollah or, for instance, the Iranian dictatorship that backs Hezbollah.
Secondly, the statements by the leaders of Hezbollah make it very clear that they have absolutely no interest in the negotiations and compromises that could lead to peace. The idea that Hezbollah is a partner for peace is utterly misguided. Its contribution to the Oslo peace process was to threaten to murder Jewish tourists and businessmen visiting Arab countries that normalised their relations with Israel. Even if we were to set all that to one side, I do not think that the leadership of our party has shown the same interest in speaking to the Israelis. Invitations to meet the leaders of Labour’s own sister party, who have repeatedly invited our leader to visit Israel and talk to them about their plans to bring the conflict to an end, have not been accepted.
The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is enormously difficult and complex.There are no easy answers. If there were, they would have been found by now. However, some elements are clearer than others, and the case of Hezbollah is one of them. This is an anti-Semitic, racist terror group—acting at the behest of Iran—which wishes to drive Jews from the middle east and murder Jews around the world. Hezbollah is part of the problem; it will never be part of the solution. That is why this House and our Government should agree today to proscribe it in its entirety.

David Jones: May I say, too, how very pleased I am, Mr Deputy Speaker, to see you in the Chair today? I congratulate the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) on her opening speech and on securing this important debate, and thank the Backbench Business Committee for facilitating it. I should declare an interest as chair of the Council for Arab-British Understanding.
There is no doubt that Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation. Indeed, it is one of the largest, most powerful, most vicious and most dangerous terrorist organisations in the world. Although it is, ostensibly, a political party, and one of the key political players in Lebanon, it also overtly and rigidly adheres to the Shi’ite revolutionary agenda of Iran. Its emergence in 1982 in the wake of the Israeli invasion of south Lebanon was directly attributable to the intervention of Iran. The influence of Iran was made clear in Hezbollah’s manifesto, dated 1985, which stated:
“We are the sons of the umma—the party of God, the vanguard of which was made victorious by God in Iran.”
Hezbollah, in truth, is an Iranian proxy, closely associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and, like Iran, it considers the United States and Israel its principal enemies. Early in its existence, Hezbollah pledged allegiance to Ayatollah Khomeini, and since Khomeini’s death in 1989 it has continued allegiance to his successor, Ali Khamenei.
Central to the ideology of Hezbollah is the concept of resistance, chiefly to the United States and Israel, and resistance is Hezbollah code for terrorist activity. Indeed, the history of Hezbollah has been one of one terrorist act after another. In April 1983, very shortly after its formation, it carried out a suicide attack on the United States embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people. Six months later, there was another suicide bombing—of the US Marines barracks in Beirut—which killed 241. US nationals have been repeatedly targeted by Hezbollah, and, indeed, Hezbollah was responsible for killing more Americans than any other terrorist organisation until the 9/11 attacks on New York city.
Israel, and Israeli interests, have also been the repeated target of Hezbollah terrorism. After Israel withdrew from south Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah carried out numerous cross-border incursions, culminating in an attack in July 2006 that killed eight Israeli soldiers. In the conflict that followed, Hezbollah fired thousands of Iranian-supplied rockets into Israeli territory, killing 39 civilians and 120 soldiers.
Hezbollah has also planned and executed many other terrorist attacks outside the region, including on the European continent. Two Hezbollah operatives are being tried in their absence for the 2012 bombing of a bus carrying Israeli citizens at Burgas airport in Bulgaria. Such actions are seen as part of the “resistance” to Israel that is one of Hezbollah’s avowed objectives. Many of the attacks have been on non-Israeli Jewish people and Jewish interests—the right hon. Member for Enfield North catalogued those attacks extensively.
Quite understandably and properly, Hezbollah’s activities have led to it being designated a terrorist organisation in many parts of the world. In 1996, Israel listed Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation, followed by the United States in 1997. It has also been proscribed by Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, France and Bahrain. In March 2016, the Gulf Co-operation Council designated it a terrorist organisation, stressing its status as a proxy for Iran in regional conflicts, including with the Houthi rebellion in Yemen. The secretary general of the GCC, Abdul Latif bin Rashid Al Zayani, commented:
“The GCC states consider Hezbollah militias’ practices in the Council’s states and their terrorist and subversive acts being carried out in Syria, Yemen and Iraq contradict moral and humanitarian values and principles and international law and pose a threat to Arab national security.”
Very recently, in November last year, most of the Arab League’s 22 members condemned Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation, stating that it was supporting terrorist groups across the middle east by supplying them with weapons, including ballistic missiles.
The United Kingdom’s position on Hezbollah has been somewhat more nuanced. In 2001, the UK proscribed Hezbollah’s External Security Organisation under the Terrorism Act 2000. That proscription was extended to the military wing, including the Jihad Council, in 2008 as a consequence of Hezbollah’s targeting of British soldiers in Iraq. The UK was also instrumental in persuading the European Union to designate the military wing a terrorist entity in 2013.
However, the British Government have consistently been reluctant to extend the proscription to the entirety of Hezbollah. In an explanatory memorandum to the European Scrutiny Committee in August 2013, the then Minister for Europe, my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington), stated that although the UK does not engage with Hezbollah’s political wing, some EU member states do engage with it as a political party in Lebanon and therefore had concerns over the effect of EU designation on that engagement. He explained that by differentiating between Hezbollah’s political and military wings, the designation would not prevent those member states that have contacts with Hezbollah’s political representatives from maintaining such contact.
The Minister stated in the same memorandum that the military wing of Hezbollah was separate from the political wing, which included Ministers, Members of Parliament and other representatives, and was overseen by a political council. I suggest that such a distinction is completely illusory. The fact is that Hezbollah itself denies that there is any distinction to be drawn between its military and political wings.

Louise Ellman: It is a great privilege to follow so many excellent contributions from all parts of the House. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) for securing this extremely important debate and for her very powerful opening speech.
Hezbollah is a radical Shi’a Islamist terrorist organisation founded in Iran soon afterthe 1979 revolution. It is an anti-Semitic organisation that carries out acts of international terrorism. It should be proscribed in its entirety. Instead, the UK accepts the spurious distinction between Hezbollah’s political and military wings, banning the military wing but permitting the so-called political wing to operate. As hon. Members have pointed out, Hezbollah itself does not accept this distinction. In 2012, its deputy secretary gGeneral, Naim Qassem, said very explicitly:
“We don’t have a military wing and a political one; we don’t have Hezbollah on one hand and the resistance party on the other.”
The evidence that Hezbollah engages in terrorism and engenders hate is overwhelming. Hezbollah was behind the bombing of the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in 1994, killing 85 people. It has murdered people—Jews, Christians, Muslims and others—in places such as Nigeria, Thailand, Bulgaria and Cyprus. It is complicit with the murderous Assad regime in Syria. Operating with Assad and Iran, it is part of the “axis of resistance” that seeks to confront Sunni power, western influence and Israel. It is a malign influence.
Hezbollah specifically promotes anti-Semitism. Al-Manar, Hezbollah TV, was the first media outlet to make the false claim that 4,000 Jews or Israelis did not go to work in the World Trade Centre on 9/11, allegedly on the basis of advice from Mossad. This lie has now become a widespread anti-Semitic libel. Hezbollah’s message incites violence. Esther Webman, who has studied Hezbollah’s anti-Semitic motifs, has concluded that Hezbollah’s brand of anti-Semitism is typical of contemporary violent Islamist groups. She describes it as
“combining traditional Islamic perceptions with Western anti-Semitic terminology and motifs to express its opposition to Zionism. Zionism, in turn, is equated not only with the State of Israel but also with imperialism and with Western arrogance.”
This issue has very serious implications for us in the UK. At the annual al-Quds march in London last June, Hezbollah’s green and yellow flag—the same flag displayed in military operations—was put on show. The purpose of the march and of al-Quds day itself is to agitate for violent resistance and the destruction of the state of Israel. At the centre of the flag, the largest Arabic word in green reads “Hezbollah”, out of which emerges a globe with an upraised arm grasping an assault rifle. The letter A of Allah is linked to the upraised arm grasping the assault rifle, signifying the ideological legitimisation of Hezbollah’s armed resistance as being divinely sanctioned. That message is clear, menacing and extremely powerful. The menacing chants at the march on the streets of London this year included the heinous cry:
“Zionists/ISIS are the same.
Only difference is the name.”

Nick Thomas-Symonds: I will make two points to my hon. Friend. First, when briefings are prepared, they tend to focus on the narrow issue of the debate, but let me be clear that we condemn anti-Semitism is all its forms. Secondly, with regard to peace going forward, we have to be careful about closing off diplomatic channels. For example, I was interested to read the comments made by former Prime Minister Tony Blair about Hamas only a few months ago. He was talking about the boycott of Hamas after the Palestinian elections of 2006 and said:
“In retrospect I think we should have, right at the very beginning, tried to pull”
Hamas
“into a dialogue and shifted their positions. I think that’s where I would be in retrospect.”
While I do not for a moment underplay the terrible violent acts, we should be careful about our maintenance of engagement in these difficult conflicts around the world.

David Jones: My right hon. Friend says that it is not the view of every country and every security service that Hezbollah is indivisible. Is it not his difficulty that it is Hezbollah’s own view that it is indivisible, and considers itself a single organisation?

Ben Wallace: On the hon. Lady’s first point, it is not acceptable if the police or CPS do not take action when there are offences that would allow them to do so. It is not always that they are not able; it may be a choice that they have made, either because of resources—we can debate that—or perhaps because they have found that, for the public good, they could do something about it later. I stood on the Falls Road for many months of my life watching paramilitary flags go past. When I was soldier on those streets, we had the power to do something, but, perhaps for the good of the public order, the view was that we should not do anything about it. I do not know about the individual motives of the people on the march the hon. Lady mentions or of the police on that day, but it is not the case that they do not have the power to do something. This House has given them the powers, year on year, over many decades, to take action.
I think that we all feel, especially in this social media age, in which we are often inundated by hate and intimidation, whether on Twitter or in emails, that there is a broader debate about how we can deal with and prosecute hate and extremism in this country. Unfortunately, from my point of view it seems to be on an upward rather than downward curve among some groups of people in society.
Political parties of all colours need to send very strong messages to supporters, allies or over-excited individuals who seek to take our parties’ names and use them alongside hatred, anti-Semitism, racism and Islamophobic comment. All that is unacceptable. We should not forget  though that we need to encourage our police and CPS to take action and to set an example with regard to some of these plans. As I have said, the Government continue to exercise proscription power in a proportionate manner in accordance with the law, and we will continue to monitor groups and people of concern.
Section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000 provides a power to the Home Secretary to proscribe the organisation if she believes that it is concerned in terrorism. The Act specifies that
“an organisation is concerned in terrorism if it commits or participates in an act of terrorism, prepares for terrorism, promotes or encourages terrorism, or is otherwise concerned in terrorism.”
If the test is met, the Secretary of State must then exercise her discretion to proscribe the organisation. In considering whether to exercise this discretion, she is also guided by the nature and scale of the organisation’s activities, the specific threat that it poses to the United Kingdom, the specific threat that it poses to British nationals overseas, the organisation’s presence in the United Kingdom and the need to support other members of the international community in tackling terrorism.
Given the wide-ranging impact of proscription, the Home Secretary exercises her powers to proscribe only after a thorough review of the available relevant information and evidence on the organisation. For an individual to be proscribed, the police and Crown Prosecution Service must have evidence to the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt that the context and manner for which the flag is displayed, for example, aroused reasonable suspicion that the individual is specifically a member, or a supporter, of that proscribed group and elements of a wider group.
Peaceful protest is a vital part of our democratic society. It is a long-standing tradition in this country that people are free to gather together and to demonstrate their views, however uncomfortable or repugnant those can be to the majority of us, but they must do so within the law. There is of course a balance to be struck. Protesters’ rights need to be balanced with the rights of others to go about their business without fear of intimidation or serious disruption to the community. Rights to peaceful protest do not extend to violent or threatening behaviour, and the police have powers to deal with as many such acts, as I have said.
The management of protest is of course a matter left to the police. As I said earlier, the investigation and prosecution of all criminal offences is a matter for the CPS and the police. I will happily push to the organisations —the police and the CPS—the messages that I have heard from the House today to make sure that they step up their efforts in this area.

Ben Wallace: Well, as I said earlier, that is a matter for the police, if people are spitting and inciting hatred. In this country, we have operational independence between Ministers and the police. We can talk about whether we are giving them the right resources—we regularly do across the Dispatch Boxes—but fundamentally what will protect my hon. Friend’s constituents, whether they are Christian, Jewish or Muslim, is for Parliament to give our law enforcement and security organisations powers and to fund them, so that they can use those powers to keep us safe by dealing with the threat based on intelligence, as we receive it, and ensuring that we de-radicalise people who might be attracted to hate.
If my hon. Friend’s constituents are being abused, that is not a failure of the Government; it is a question to ask the police. We will help him ensure that the police deal with that, but I have to say that it is not because of the partial proscription or de-proscription of Hezbollah. He must understand—I am sure that he does—that a stable middle east is the best way to provide long-term peace for Europe and the United Kingdom. We do not want an unstable middle east at all.
I have listened to the debate and heed the very valid points that have been made by Members on both sides of the House. My commitment as Security Minister is to continue to keep groups such as Hezbollah under review. We will continue to talk to our friends and allies in the region and around the world, but we will fundamentally focus on what we need to do to keep the United Kingdom safe, for the short and long term. I will certainly do my best to encourage the police, other political parties and all our supporters and friends to ensure that hate is not tolerated, no matter who it is aimed at.

James Morris: The Sandwell Council misconduct hearing found that Mahboob Hussain had broken the rules in a sale of public toilets. It said that the councillor “ignored” a £130,000 valuation, and instead sold them for £35,000 to a family friend. Councillor Mahboob Hussain has denied any misconduct, and of course he has the right to defend himself. West Midlands police have said that there is “insufficient detail” to launch a criminal investigation into the breach. However, James Goudie QC, who chaired the hearing, found that the councillor had breached the code of conduct a total of 12 times. He summarised that by saying that Mr Hussain,
“compromised the integrity of other council officers by exercising complete control over the action of the sale of the toilet block…The councillor’s actions brought the council into disrepute.”
I am aware that the Wragge report was a contested document, and there are serious questions about its cost and how it was commissioned. As I have said, it was intended never to be made public, and it has reportedly cost the authority about £185,000—a substantial sum of money. Since the publication of the report in 2016, further historical allegations about a number of individuals have come to light. In January last year, an audit report brought to the public’s attention further and more widespread allegations, all of which are in the public arena and have been published on Sandwell Council’s website. Some of them have not been investigated properly, and where wrongdoing has been proved, that has not resulted in any action being taken. I do not take a view about the nature of the allegations; I merely describe them to give the House a perspective on the level of allegations that have been made about the conduct of some councillors in Sandwell Council.

Eleanor Laing: I thank the hon. Gentleman for clarifying that.
Over the last few years I have written to the Secretary of State several times about these matters. He has looked into them, and I am grateful for his time. Let me now end my speech by asking the Minister to investigate whether the following actions can be taken.
I should like the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to make the strongest intervention possible in respect of the capabilities and governance of Sandwell Council. I should like it to make a series of recommendations which would restore public trust and confidence, and which would be overseen by an independent commissioner. I should like it to look into the behaviour and conduct of both elected and non-elected members of the authority, and I should like those who are found to have behaved inappropriately to be removed from their posts. I should like the Minister to look into the rules relating to councillors and bankruptcy to ensure that those who have been declared bankrupt cannot hold public office, and to strengthen the independence of standards committees by keeping them free from political influence by ensuring that independent members are externally appointed.
There are also many questions to be answered by the local authority, including questions about monitoring officers. Perhaps the Minister could look into that as well, because Sandwell has been through a number of them in the last four years. I should like to know how much the redundancies cost, and whether the use of compromise agreements has been used to gag those people. I understand that such agreements have been used. I should like to understand why, and also why it is so difficult for the authority to keep monitoring officers in post.
What I have said today has, in many respects, probably just scratched the surface. No one will ever know the complete story, and I may well have missed out many things that others will feel needed to be said. I initiated the debate primarily because I felt that it was in the public interest to do so: the public need to know answers, and I will continue to press for the truth to come out. I did so also because I have met and spoken to so many people in Rowley Regis, in Sandwell, and further afield who are gravely concerned. I have spoken to residents, faith leaders, businesses, and others who have given decades of service, including members of the Labour party who were in tears as they spoke to me about the state of political authority and control in the party in Sandwell. They now feel that there is nowhere left for them to turn.
I hope that the Minister has been as disturbed by what he has heard today as many residents of Sandwell are, and I hope that he will be able to intervene in a way that will restore public trust and bring an end to this rotten regime.

Rishi Sunak: I am about to come on to the most recent local government peer inspection.
The £21 million of funding that the Department has provided has supported training and guidance for members and officers, policy briefings and a programme of external peer challenges.
I will now address each of the points my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis has asked me to respond to. First, on the question of intervention at Sandwell Council, it is important that I take this opportunity to stress that the decision to intervene in a local authority and remove control from those who have been democratically elected is very serious. Only as  a last resort would the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government use his powers of intervention, and only where there is comprehensive evidence of extremely serious and widespread systemic failings in a council. Statutory interventions are rare: the powers have been used only twice in the last five years and only six times in the last 15 years.
I am aware of the allegations that my hon. Friend has outlined today, and of the fact that Sandwell Council has been subject of extremely negative press coverage that has no doubt undermined public confidence locally and raised serious questions about conduct. I am also aware that, in response, Sandwell Council has recently invited a Local Government Association external peer challenge, which was conducted last week with a team led by the chief executive of Sefton Council. The peer challenge team is due to report back to the council formally within the next week or so. I have every confidence that it will have looked forensically at the council’s strengths and weaknesses and that it will provide clear feedback and robust recommendations. I will be particularly keen to review the team’s conclusions and recommendations, and I am urging Sandwell Council to share them with me at the earliest possible opportunity. I would expect the council to take the results of the external challenge very seriously and to take all action required as a result.
I want specifically to address the points raised about councillor conduct, standards and governance. The Localism Act 2011 provides a broad framework for local authority standards, allowing local authorities to tailor their arrangements to meet local circumstances. The Act requires relevant authorities to promote and maintain high standards of conduct by members and co-opted members of the authority. Each local authority must publish a code of conduct that is consistent with the Nolan principles of standards in public life and that covers the registration of pecuniary interests.
Authorities must make arrangements to investigate allegations of failure to comply with their code of conduct, and in many cases councils have standards committees to undertake that role. If a councillor breaches the code, they can be censured and any portfolio responsibilities or memberships of outside bodies can be removed. The council must consult an independent person before making a decision on a breach of its code of conduct. It is vital that that independence is genuine, so that it can provide proper oversight and good governance. The independent person must therefore be among the electorate; have no political affiliation; have no current or previous association with the council; and have no friends or family members associated with the council. Last week, Sandwell Council recruited and appointed an additional independent person for its ethical standards and member development committee, which is now at its full complement with three independent members and eight councillors. I would of course expect those councillors to take seriously their responsibility to hold their peers to account and provide democratic accountability.
It is also a statutory requirement for all councils to have a monitoring officer to ensure that the council operates within the law. The monitoring officer’s duty is to investigate concerns about conduct, and they are ultimately responsible for ensuring the genuine independence of members of standards committees. I expect monitoring officers to live up to those responsibilities with the utmost seriousness. A new monitoring officer has been  in post at Sandwell since September, and I hope that we will continue to see a change in the council’s ability to get to grips with the long-standing standards issues that have been generating negative attention. I understand that some progress is now being made, albeit somewhat belatedly, on two of the long-standing allegations involving the disposal of council property. As we are aware, there are further allegations that are the subject of a police investigation, so my hon. Friend will obviously understand that I cannot comment further on them. I would encourage the monitoring officer to continue his work in transparently dealing with complaints and allegations and acting without fear or favour.
My hon. Friend asked about the rules on councillors and bankruptcy. I can tell him that the existing legislation is clear that any individual who is subject to bankruptcy orders is disqualified from standing as, or holding office as, a member of a local authority. As part of local openness and accountability, it is right that the disqualification ceases only when the individual has paid his debt in full. I wholeheartedly agree with the principle that it is important that elected members are held to high standards of conduct in public office. If there are allegations that this law has not been complied with, as has been suggested, I would urge the monitoring officer to investigate.
The LGA peer challenge and the sharper focus that the council is giving to standards and conduct are important steps in addressing the issues that the council faces. As my hon. Friend has highlighted, however, it is undeniable that Sandwell has had other significant challenges to address in recent years. Since 2010, the council has received attention in relation to its children’s services, with four “inadequate” Ofsted ratings. An independent report concluded that the council did not, on its own, have the capability or capacity to improve children’s services. That led the Department for Education to issue a statutory direction in January 2016, requiring the council to work with an appointed commissioner for children’s services and develop a children’s trust. I hope that the council will work closely with the children’s commissioner, Malcolm Newsam, and the Department for Education to agree detailed proposals about how the trust will work. The Government are committed to working together to make sure that children and families in Sandwell receive the best possible care and support through the new trust.
In conclusion, as my hon. Friend will be aware, local government is independent of central Government—a principle enshrined in the Localism Act 2011. Through elected councillors—and, where applicable, Mayors—councils are accountable to the communities that they serve, through the ultimate sanction of the ballot box.